Halloween, and only three weeks early

Friday was Halloween at Anuban Lansak, my big school. As part of Goal Two of the Peace Corps, to educate the world about America, I decided to organize a party showing the students what Halloween really means: doing the “Chicken Dance” and the “Macarena”, running around with a pumpkin on your shoulder and getting candy. In other words, not really teaching them about Halloween at all, but, whatever, they got some candy out of the deal, so everybody wins.

The party was actually a lot more successful than I anticipated it would be. The whole week prior I had been working on making materials and buying materials. I had ghosts and witches on the brain for seven straight days. By the time Friday came, I was just ready to be done with the whole thing. I had invited three of the nearest volunteers to come and help me out, but two of them had to cancel. One has had extensive flooding in his province, and his co-teacher was concerned about him traveling. The other had a severe eye infection and was in Bangkok because, and I quote, the doctor “didn't want him to go blind at site.” I suppose the threat of blindness gives him an acceptable out, although I feel like that could have added a whole new dimension of surprise to this party. I had really needed them all for the scary story that I would be telling, but I'll get to that soon.

Before last week, my co-teacher and I wrote a plan in both English and Thai to get approved by the principal. He said it was great and told other teachers that if they ever wanted to make a special event, they could follow our plan. The day would go for three hours from 1-4 in the afternoon. The students had tests on Monday and Tuesday and then the school was closed on Wednesday and Thursday and reopened on Friday, specifically for this party, which put major pressure on me.

Although the party didn't start until 1 p.m., the kids showed up at 8, like a regular school day, presumably to work on their masks that we had given them earlier in the week, but mostly to play and make a mess. I spent most of the morning preparing for the afternoon and dodging children. Erin, the one volunteer who could come, showed up at 11 with two teachers from her school in tow. We ate lunch together and then shortly after 12, we started.

It was quite a sight: about 230 4^th- through 6^th- graders staring up at me from behind their homemade masks, with rapt attention. Honestly, I have never seen this group so quiet. It was awesome and really made me happy that I had decided to undertake this project because sometimes I forget that these children do not have the same childhood that I did, where Halloween was a holiday that came around every year, and that it was a given that every year I would don a costume and troop around the neighborhood to collect candy. To them, this wasn't just an ordinary event; it was something that most of them had never experienced before, even if it wasn't “pure” Halloween but just a Thai interpretation of it. For once, I was the one being asked why such strange things like black cats and bats are part of this day instead of me doing the asking. To be able to share even this small part of American culture with them was exciting and made me a little proud.

**Side note: homemade costumes can be awesome! Some of these kids took trash and made the coolest costumes out of them. For example, these two adorable girls in fourth grade asked me if it was okay that their costumes were the same because they were going as a ghost “couple,” with matching black trash bags and little red bow-ties.

After I stood in front of the students, said “Happy Halloween” to them and explained in the most simple English what Halloween is, I turned it over to the assistant principal who explained in Thai, again, what the holiday was about, with the help of a printout from Wikipedia. I'm hoping it was at least fairly accurate. I don't really want the kids to think that I hail from a country with cannibals and witch-burnings (which I do, but they don't need to know that). In any case, the kids listened like they've never heard anything more interesting.

Then, I narrated our scary story, with the help of Erin and the students and teacher I enlisted to help. The story itself was probably too complicated (even though it was the simplest story I could fine), but with some help from sound effects courtesy of iTunes and Erin's overwrought acting, the kids loved it.

After, we divided the students into groups with the name of a Halloween creature as their mascot. They had 10 minutes to create a cheer, in English. It was a bit of a fail, but it was the only chance I had to slip in some English, so I figured we'd at least give it a try. In the end, the “Mummies”, a group made up of the best English students from the sixth grade and all girls, won.

As the students were now divided into teams, we had them compete in some games with Halloween themes, like “Pin the tail on the black cat,” which lent itself to some hilarious moments, with kids wandering all over the place. For each event, I gave the first-, second-, and third-place teams “pumpkin points.” The team with the most won some additional candy at the end.

With the threat of rain, we had to cut some events and our “Fashion Show”, where the students were supposed to go up on stage and show off their costumes, was reduced to Erin walking through the crowd and handing out prizes. A little anti-climactic to say the least.

To end the day, we all did “The Chicken Dance” and the “Macarena” as a real tribute to Halloween. Although not technically related to Halloween, I suppose it was a good introduction to American wedding culture and the One-Hit Wonders we've embraced over the years.

The one event that we had to cut was the scary food story, where we would have the kids touch some peeled grapes and tell them it's eyeballs and the like. On one hand, I was disappointed because I went to a lot of trouble to make the food and the big pictures of the body parts that they were supposed to be, but on the other hand, I felt a sense of relief because I didn't know if the whole thing was counter-intuitive to the Thais perception of how food should be treated. Just the day before, I had had to change one of the games because it involved putting a pumpkin on the ground and pushing it with a broom. My co-teacher told me that Thai people don't do this because it's disrespectful to treat food in such a way, which I completely understand. In the end, we changed that event to the kids carrying the pumpkin between their neck and shoulder and passing it to their teammates without using their hands, so I didn't know if telling kids to put their hands all over something that we weren't going to eat after would fly.

I can tell you one thing, though: if we do this again next year, I'm doing it. Just the thought of making those kids squirm when touching spaghetti “intestines” is too much of a temptation.